We walk into the oldest bar (it was harder than expected)

The Central Saloon, Seattle, Washington
We thought it would be cool to go to the oldest bar in Seattle -- if we could just figure out where it was.

In other words, Mindy and I wound up at two different places when we tried to meet at Seattle’s oldest bar.

I’ve often passed a bar on First Avenue South with a neon sign reading “Seattle’s Oldest Saloon,” so when we agreed we’d meet at Seattle’s oldest bar when she got off work. Even though Mindy texted me to meet her at “Merchants,” which she’d seen listed as Seattle’s oldest bar, I figured that was the place with the neon. Turns out, that place is called “Central.” At the designated meeting time, Mindy and I texted each other to ask “Where are you?

Fortunately, Merchants and Central are only a couple of blocks apart, so Mindy walked over to meet me at Central. Eventually, we asked Zach, one of the bartenders at Central, about the discrepancy. “The history is murky,” he said. Google had already made that clear (or murky). He told us that Merchants opened in 1890, two years before Central. But in 1890, Merchants was a restaurant, not as a bar. Central opened in 1892 as a saloon, a place you could get a drink. In our book, that means Central qualifies as the oldest bar. (There is another bar in the Georgetown neighborhood, across the Duwamish Waterway from West Seattle, that claims to be the oldest. Georgetown wasn’t part of Seattle when the bar opened. So, no.)

Central does feel old. But good old. It feels like a dive. But good dive. There are photos on the wall that date back to the bar’s opening day. There are many band posters from the 1980s and 90s when grunge made the Emerald City the world’s musical hot spot. Central is still a music place with the slogan “Seattle’s best new music in its oldest saloon.” Three bands were going to play later that evening (after we planned to leave). The one that sounded the most tempting was an all-girl Weezer cover band. Which sounded awesome.

We talked a bit with Michael, Central’s music booker, who did the extra duty of fetching coffee for the bar staff. He also told us a great story about a bar trip in Scotland. The group of friends stood in front of a bar and flipped a coin to decide whether to go in or not. Once inside, they decided whether to have a beer or shots by a coin flip. They hit dozens of pubs this way, and in their final stop just before closing time, they ended up meeting the bar’s owners, who locked the door and all of them partied until 5:00 am.

The Saints and the Cowboys were playing on the TVs. Music was playing overhead, including Joan Osborne’s “What If God Was One Of Us?” You might remember the song, about meeting God on the bus.

We sat at the bar and ordered a few things from the happy hour menu (quesadillas for me and tots for Mindy, with cocktails for each of us). After we’d gotten our food and drinks, our server said, “We’re switching to the night bar, can we close you out and then you can start a new tab after that?” Zach the bartender was coming in then, and “Thank you, Zach, you’re the best!” said the departing bartender.

Zach told us that he’s usually a morning bartender. (There is something fascinating about the idea of a day bartender. It’s unexpected, like being a night lifeguard. Or, I guess, a night auditor.) He said he likes the day shift because then he has the rest of the day -- and the night -- to himself. Working the occasional night shift means recognizing a different set of regulars, and there plenty of regulars there. The bartenders greeted several people greeted by name (and one even got a hug).

Erin was also working behind the bar for the evening. We talked with her and asked her our two perpetual bar questions, “What makes for a good bar?” and “What makes for a good church?” She said, “The staff makes or breaks a bar.” And she likes the staff she works with at Central. She likes other things about this bar, calling it, “timeless, with a lot of history. (It’s) not the Burger King of bars. It has the right amount of grit.” She talked about how, as Seattle continued to grow, this was a place where people still know each other’s first names.

Erin said she grew up on a reservation and had never been to church. But she thought a good church would have “a sense of community” as the most important thing. She said the strength of people is our tribal nature, our need to come together. That's something that can happen at churches and at bars.

As we left Central, I thought of that Joan Osborne song. If God was one of us, would He meet us at Central? (By the way, Christmas is coming. It’s the time of year when we can’t escape the reminder that God became one of us.)